


Operation: Get Lucky

by bigsoftie



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space Bounty Hunters, Dogboys & Doggirls, F/F, F/M, Horrorterrors - Freeform, Human Beta Trolls, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mention of Alpha Trolls, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Rated M for later sexiness, There be magic, Witches and Warlocks
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-30
Updated: 2014-08-13
Packaged: 2018-02-11 00:50:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2046759
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bigsoftie/pseuds/bigsoftie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A bounty hunter’s job is not easy with anything and everything trying to kill you for that one thing that every Tom, Dick, and Harry wants to get their hands on. Don’t forget a sister with four, adopted off the street, pups that worry too much. But he's got news for you subpar bounty hunters; he's gonna kill two birds with one stone:  catch a Horrorterror and leave Alternia for good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Dems The Breaks

“Git away from my ship!”

The owner of said ship wore a black and white colored spacesuit, with his back flat on the moving platform, harshly kicks the oversized rabbit, who was trying to make a grab at him. He got it square in the face with such force that the rabbit fell backwards away from the ship. A sigh of relief could be heard miles away. The platform closed as the owner quickly gets up and pulls off his black gloves and white greasy kiss covered helmet uncovering over styled blonde hair that housed his alert dark ears. He stares at the helmet for a moment before basketballing the thing into a nearby helmet cleaner. He unzips his spacesuit to pull out his pointed sunglasses that he got from his first mission as a parting gift and put them on with adept ease. He takes off the rest of the suit to reveal his faded orange undershirt and slightly loose dark grey pants. He grabs his prize out of the small bag attached to his spacesuit. His soft curly white tipped black tail wags in excitement.

“Finally, I thought that I wouldn’t make it outta there with ya,” He smiles as he holds the small trinket, it looked like it was a brooch of some kind, maybe royalty, which was no bigger than his knuckle in his palm, in front of his face. A sudden realization came when his black ship, with orange highlights, started moving back and forth involuntarily, due to all the bunnies pushing the legs to topple it over even with several hanging off the sides of the triangular ship. He stumbles as he manages to catch his balance. He quickly heads towards the front of his ship where the main controls lay waiting. 

“If you don’t hurry you’ll be fucked in more ways than one. 99.7% sure that you would enjoy that. Jiminy fucking cricket they're humping the merchandise here.”

Face palm x1. Before he could get a retort across to HAL the ship shook even more violently as he barely made to the front without dropping the contents of the small bag. He gently puts the trinket back in the bag to look at later then shoving it into his left pocket. He heads straight for the keyboard and clawed pink padded fingers type quickly, like a seasoned pro, across the keyboard to make his ship launch into space and orbit for a while. But as he was doing so the largest of them known as their king manages to hop on the front of the ship with everything on display, which didn’t surprise him very much, but at that point the ship begins to head towards space. Its legs quickly folds into the inside the ship forcing the rabbits to fall off. The ship blasts off with the king barely hanging on and soon slipping off to fall flat on its back with many of his subjects crawling all over him to either comfort him or fuck him he would never know or really want to, but the owner couldn’t help a chuckle though.

“That’s whatcha git for hoppin’ on my ship.” 

He grabs his small prize again out of his pocket and opens the scratchy fabric to reveal the contents that he had to go through a hoard of sex crazed cottontails and a bunch of others just as bad to get it. Now he really wished he could’ve stayed, but he was getting paid really well to get this tiny thing for some female who posted the bounty. He could only guess why she dropped it on this particular planet.

Almost out of nowhere the communicator pops up on the main computer making a small rather annoying beeping noise of an incoming video call. He quickly pushes the accept button on his keyboard, he truly didn’t want to hear HAL complain for taking too long, to open up the visual communicator. 

It reveals a rather peeved young lady whose neck is covered by a purple striped scarf with long floppy cotton white ears and blonde hair that has a small curl on the side of her forehead looking directly at the owner of the ship.

“Dirk!” The part Belington Terrier exclaims. 

Yeah his name is Dirk Strider who is part Basenji, a breed not many knew of, with a preference for the name Bro to anything else. He didn't have a last name until he became a legal bounty hunter under Her Imperial Condensation on the planet of Alternia. She so sweetly picked out his last name. He never thought that such a messed up little Chihuahua/Rottweiler mix could be queen of such a fucked up planet, but at the moment he has other more important things to focus on. 

“Dirk!” Like this for instance.

“What happened now, Roxy?”

Roxy put a clawed hand to her forehead in a dramatic way, “Everythin’! These lil’ monsters dat you babysit had made a mess in da house! Plus I could barely git ‘em to take a nap ta not even want to clean up the mess that they so nicely made for me!” She whined.

Dirk almost laughed out loud if he wasn’t so cool on the sly, but knew if he did that he would catch some kind of hell from her, i.e. his ship might catch one virus too many and HAL would whine at him about it. He still hasn’t figured out why he thought it was a good idea to have an A.I, similar to him, as the main computer is beyond him.

“Well, what do ya expect? For ‘em to be obedi-“

“Yes!” She cuts in sharply as her stubby cotton tail wiggles her off white skirt.

“Well, excuse me princess but that’s near impossible to have da whole lot of ‘em be sweet as a button, ya know. Especially John…he’s a lil’ shit.”

“But-!”

The small circle on the right corner of screen started flashing red to indicate a new bounty has been posted.

“Hold on, a sec.” Bro pushed another button to push the video call down and open a different screen to what they called the Universal Bounty Board or UBB for short.

The screen shows the planet, its name, the bounty, and the price for such a capture. The planet that shows up was called Skaia and the target that they wanted to get rid of was a creature called a Horrorterror, he had heard from various bounty hunters, that are believed to be difficult to kill let alone capture alive for maximum reward, but Bro can’t say no to a challenge at the right price. He continues reading till he got to the bottom and it read ‘Any Price’.

“Shouldn’t have said that…” Bro thought when he looked at such an ambiguous price. Many new bounty hunters have already put up a set price for the capture, which you should never do when it says that, but it doesn’t matter now since they are already flocking to the planet despite even knowing little to nothing about Horrorterrors. Those creatures could more or less kill them if they do not have the proper tools to take it on. Lucky for him research was his middle name, which it totally is at this very moment. Dirk Research Strider. Nice. He should really start researching the planet Skaia while he’s thinking about it.

He gets out of the Universal Bounty Board and went back to Roxy.

“Sorry Roxy, but another bounty came up. So I am gonna be staying out a lil’ longer.” He smirks as cool as he could muster in hopes of taking the edge off for Roxy, but that idea went down the drain as she looks at him shocked then angry.

“See ya.”

“Di-!!”

Bro did the only thing that he could do, to not hear her protest angrily at him, was to immediately turn off his communicator.

“Oh shit. We got a bad ass here.” HAL taunts almost feeling the glee in its robotic voice.

His dark ears unconsciously droop a little, totally ignoring the comment, as he knew that he will definitely catch hell when he gets back to his home planet. This was his only chance to face a Horrorterror, though! Maybe even actually capturing it for the off the charts profit. He just had to try mostly for the sake of his makeshift family to actually leave and never return. Besides he really did not have any other interest in whatever this planet had to offer besides the bounty.

He set two coordinates, the closest UBB office to get the money to send to his sister and Skaia. He can’t wait to get that out the way so he can make haste to a planet unknown to him.

Meanwhile on his home planet…

“UGH!”

Roxy ruffles the top of her head in frustration as the screen went black. She could not believe him! They need money to feed these pups and the last bounty’s not going to make it much longer. He better stop to drop that bounty off or else, she swears, she going to punch him in the throat.

As Roxy, mentally fumes at her older brother for the sudden departure of the original mission. There standing at opposite sides of the doorway were four five year old pups just under four feet tall, which the two look after, all of them looking into the computer room. 

John, part Great Dane/Labrador Retriever mix with short messy black hair as his semi floppy grey ears are peppered in black spots stick out the top, standing on his twin sister Jade’s shoulders even though he did step on her long hair a couple of times as they stood on the right side of the doorway. The twins’ long thin grey tails wag in excitement of whatever is making Roxy act funny. The other two on the left side are just a smidge smaller. The both of them are part Pit bulls/Border collie mix with fluffy yet perky reddish brown ears with streaks of dark brown in short blonde hair and short white tipped tails not moving at all at the scene before the two. Rose with her pretty black headband lay just before her ears stood on top of Dave’s shoulders trying to hide her smugness of being top dog. Dave held on Rose’s legs with as much of a neutral face he could muster, but his bottom lip stood prominent on his face behind his prescribed sunglasses. Roxy turns around to find the four of them staring at her wearing their favorite colored footie pajamas.

“What are ya’ll doing up?” Her brown hands rest on her hips with mock anger on her face.

“If ya’ll don’t go to bed we won’t go ta Janey’s tomorrow!”

Jade lets go of John’s legs and start to jump and clap her colorful rubber ringed hands in excitement. John fell with a thud clutching his head in the aftermath. It took a lot for Dave to not laugh because he cared about his best bud’s pride, but Rose was just snickering away at him. They didn’t think they would go back since the candy incident a few weeks ago, but it seems like they were forgiven. It took a minute for Jade to realize what she just did to John as she quickly turns around with a fanged smile as wide as a mile helping John onto his feet again.

“My bad John!” 

Roxy starts to relax just a little since she didn’t want to tell them that Dirk won’t be back for a while longer. She knows that whatever Dirk is doing; it’s for them. Though she really didn’t want to go to the bar tomorrow for her first evening, but she didn’t want to rely solely on Dirk for money since the last few times other hunters found the bounties he was after and had a hard time getting food even with Jane’s generosity on this metal encrusted dirt ball. 

She gets up and manages to get all four of them on her person with the boys hanging off her clothed shoulders and the girls nestled nicely in her arms. They leave the computer room to go down a small hallway that also led to living room/kitchen that had a futon for Dirk to sleep on. She doesn’t understand why he has to sleep there while she has the main bedroom all to herself, but she’s hardly ever in the mood to argue with him about it. Roxy heads the opposite direction towards the pups’ room. She stops at the bathroom and the pups shake their heads no. Getting to their bedroom she tucks them into their beds and kisses each of them on the head with only two this time making faces.

“Goodnight don’t let-“

“-the bed bugs bite!”

The pups say in unison as she grins before closing the door with an unheard sigh.

“If it’s worth anything,” Roxy clasps her hands together; eyes closed and in a whisper, “Dirk, whatever the bounty is; don’t do anything too stupid… and come back safe.”


	2. Long Live Magic

There are secrets that should never be revealed to the public or there will be mass panic and hysteria on Skaia. Nobody wants that now do they, so magic helps to hide those pesky things from normal eyes. Very few practice the art of magic anymore since it was mostly ever used for selfish purposes, mostly to stay ahead in the political game, until they had it outlawed throughout Skaia. Now one the few that has kept this illegal use of magic under wraps. At this moment is standing over a small sized cauldron in the middle of her, overly large wood floored, kitchen in a hooded magenta robe. The blue tinted brew smoked and bubbled while she slowly stirs it. She kisses a small unknown animal skull from her necklace filled to the brim of painted beads and feathers. This woman mumbles magic words for it to glow intensely as it changes to gold before the afterglow fades.

“Hmph…Vriska you’re such a little thief.” She breaks into a wicked smile as she removes the hood to bare long thick hair, which a lot of it is still hiding in the robe, and shining hazel eyes.  
She turns around to walk to a cabinet that is over her silver kitchen sink. She opens it to show that it is filled to the brim with bottles of all sizes. She finds a tall rounded bottle to put the potion in for Vriska. She finds her miscellaneous silverware drawer to get the potions ladle. After corking the bottle again and setting it aside for when she gets here which shouldn’t be too long. The illegal witch grabs several more bottles for the leftovers to use for future events. She rids herself of her robes and necklaces showing off a pink blouse and dark grey slacks underneath as she sets to clean up as well. She had to appear mostly normal for the outside world especially as a world renowned politician. 

All the while a black entity slithers around the kitchen as if looking for something, but soon finds the pink heeled clad foot of the woman currently in the kitchen. It curls loosely around in an attempt to catch her attention, but it didn’t alarm her instead she welcomes it. The strange entity disengages from around her feet and forms into a taller black mass of what looks like sand. She puts the last bottle of golden liquid away with the woman petting it gently as it leans into the touch.

“Hello my pet! How are they doing?” 

Her smile is a warped kind of sweet. The entity starts to form a mouth to actually speak until a doorbell sounds throughout the house. It quickly disintegrates on the floor into long tendrils away from her. Her face became instantly annoyed. She really wanted to know how they were doing, but knew that she could find out after her little visit with Vriska. She pushes a hidden button that flips the area back into an empty black granite island. She grabs the tall rounded bottle and walks towards the front door through her castle themed living room with grey bricked wallpaper. The door opens to reveal a slightly taller dark skinned woman with long controlled messy black hair and azure eyes that sparkled, almost like her own, in hidden agendas. She wore a mid-blue button up shirt with light grey jeans and well-worn red sneakers.

“Well, hey there Feferi. You got what I want _huh_?” Feferi almost rolls her eyes at the way Vriska likes to exaggerate words to sound meaner than she already was. 

“Of course I do,” Such a fragile soul, Feferi thought to herself as she holds the golden bottle out for her take, which Vriska does take with a grin,” What political icon do you take me for, Vriska?”

“I would say a really good one, but you know _me_. That would be a _lie_ , now wouldn’t it?”

“Oh I do know you and I could care less as long as you do what you’re supposed to do.”

“Slip this in the punch at the upcoming Mixer,” She flips her hair out of habit, “I know my part _okay_ , geez.” Now Vriska was starting to look kind of pissed that she thought that she couldn’t do such a simple job as this.

“I’m glad that you do. I just don’t want you to become part of the _underprivileged_ anytime soon.”

The threat didn’t really faze her except for when she narrows her eyes at Feferi. Vriska takes a deep breath and tucks the bottle inside her large cerulean handbag on her shoulder. She turns to leave towards her car just before saying ‘whatever’ under her breath. 

Feferi closes the door behind her and makes way towards the couch that stood in front of a large wall hanging flat screen TV. Feferi plops down into the dark leather seating to wait for her pet, or to put it more accurately her watchdog, to come back for her. The mood for TV wasn’t very strong unless she wanted to see the many commercials about her campaigns about becoming empr-er president of Skaia and it all starts here at the world capital, Battlefield. Such a fitting name for what will happen.

The tendrils have already gone up the stairs to the second floor with many white doors on both sides of the long hallway, but it knew which doors the underprivileged stayed in and made another round while its master deal with whoever was at the door. It decided to check the very end of the hall where six doors are occupied with names and the first door from the left with the name Sollux Captor written in faint yellow. A single tendril slips under the door frame. 

The near constant tapping of keys on a keyboard would seem maddening to most people, but it was his life. He sits in front of his all in one computer tapping away at something. The tendril didn’t care much for what it was as long as he was not escaping anytime in the near future. Sollux shivers, his short dark hair stand on end, at its unsettling presence completely stopping to let it access him. He knew that it wasn’t hungry since it had already eaten earlier that day. The tendril slithers inside the room. It moves under the bed that sat parallel from the door. It goes to the jutted out bathroom that sits pretty close to the bed on the right side then to the other side of the room. Sollux sat at his white computer desk and the near empty closet right next to it. It did a thorough check of any underlying tricks that he might be planning before quickly leaving to follow its brethren.

Sollux breathes a small sigh of relief. At least he finished what he wanted to do, and hide it, while it remained far away from him to deal with its master, Feferi, the crazy witch that has him locked up in this hell. He pulls up the hidden window showing the UBB where he posted the bounty for the Horrorterror that was just with him. There seemed to be a few takers on the undisclosed offer. He posted this bounty several hours ago in hopes that they can get rid of it and maybe out of the kindness of their hearts to release him and the others that are trapped here. Sollux scrolls through the small list to pass some time. He takes notice of another one of them popping up on the list. Huh, Dirk Strider.

“He looth like an ath.” Staring at his generic picture as it’s not weird to see strange aliens, but he looks the most normal out of all them on the list even if Sollux expected someone else to actually pop up.

Geez he misses the outside world at the age of twenty-five, which Feferi is nice enough to humor him on his birthday and the tiny triple bared windows don’t offer a lot on scenery. A place like this could drive a person crazy, but lucky him he has a neighbor he could talk to through the walls. 

He used to be a semi respectable programmer when he was eighteen, mostly due to his attitude with a group of people, until he started hacking illegitimately at twenty one for questionable profit outside of Skaia. That put him out of commission for good and forced him on the streets at least until Feferi came along and offered him a place to stay. At first he thought it to be a temporary thing. Till one day he woke up with long ass cuffs on his legs that he could not pick the lock to. That was years ago and he’s not the only one to fall victim to it. 

Since then he’s been figuring ways to escape. For the most part his current stunt hasn’t caught the Horrorterror’s attention because the internet is not its domain. Due to him generally being on good behavior and being there first has gained him many privileges such as a computer with now unlimited access. He still can’t believe that she thought that he couldn’t get pass such simple barriers.

A knock was heard from the opposite wall from where his bolted down silver computer was. Sollux closes the UBB window. He knew that knock as it was the only knock he could hear unless it was weekend when all the doors would be open, which is might be soon. Sollux gets up from his, also bolted down, metal chair and quickly crosses the room to knock back. The shackles that are attached to the wall under the bed clink excitedly together. It was a signal for when the Horrorterror finished making rounds in their room. He didn’t think that thin walls would be an awesome thing to have. Sollux puts his purple clothed back to the wall and slides down. 

“KK? You alright or what?” 

“I could ask you the same thing, asswipe.” There came the gruff fairly muffled reply through the wall, so it seems that he doing alright and the Horrorterror was really just doing rounds before the sun sets.

“Didja hear anything from KN?”

“I ALWAYS hear from Kanaya,” She is the newest edition of six months to this motley crew of hostages,” This busy body won’t stop moving unless gravity decides to pile drive her into the fucking bed to sleep, but if I don’t I’ll let your pea-sized brain know, alright.”

Karkat is his real name. Sollux has never seen him, the only person he ever sees is Nepeta, who is across from him and she tends to be in her little world, when the doors open on the weekends, but from what he’s told him; Karkat is a hella short compared to Sollux, nineteen and an albino ginger. That surprised Sollux quite a bit as he had heard of albino gingers, but they were so rare people tend to believe that they don’t exist. 

“Well KK I’ve got a plan-“

“Oh GREAT is it going to exactly like the last plan you had Sollux? Digging our way out is too cliché for that to ACTUALLY work.”

“-to get thomeone on the outthide to help uth out. You can never let a lady finith her thentences.” The words coming out of his mouth seem almost breathless at the thought of his plan. He pulls at the hem of thin purple material of the night shirt.

“Wait. You actually got someone?” There was a quiet surprise evident in Karkat’s voice through the wall even if it’s abnormally quiet by his standards being next to the guy all this time.

“Yeth and no…”

“What in the dick humping hell do you mean by THAT?”

Just before he could say anything else he heard the slithering of the Horrorterror just outside his door. He breathes slowly and calmly not wanting to alarm it to come in here. He waited a while longer for the sounds of it to far enough away to continue the conversation and notice the sun setting through the tiny bared window above his bed.

“I pothed a bounty.”

The quiet was kind of unsettling as Sollux pulls his clothed knees up to his chest and wraps his arms around them. While Karkat sits Indian style, in his yellow pull away night wear with short sleeves, on the floor in his room with his arms behind his wild ginger hair leaning on the wall as well.

“Seriously? You don’t know ANYONE on the outside?” He looks up to the blank white ceiling. 

“Do I thound like I do?” Now this type of quiet Sollux could deal with as he hides a small smile. Even in this horrible situation there has to be something like this to keep himself from bashing his head in.

“…It’s better than nothing, I guess…” Karkat sounds a little hopeful of the situation.

“Too bad we can’t tell the otherth about my amazing plan.” 

His blue and hazel eyes slowly look over the almost completely white room aside from the computer and mahogany bed frame.

“I DOUBT that they could hold their shit anyways. They’ll figure it out when it happens.” Karkat moves his hands from behind his head to look at them. The scars have long since healed after coming here under false pretenses of her actually helping him. Though in a bizarre sense she did help with his cutting issues, but going through the adoption system really put a toll on him and Feferi leaving him here in this room by himself doesn’t really help. He thought that he wasn’t really by himself with his wall buddy right there and that eased some of the other issues that built up for a moment. Karkat did not want that thing to come back for a good while. Sollux had his head on his tan folded arms when he spoke again.

“Yeah they’ll figure it out when the time cometh.”


	3. Hit Or Miss

The morning sun wakes up a good portion of Alternia, especially two pups that come bounding into Roxy’s bedroom unless Dirk was home then he would definitely have a chest full of kids. One of the main reasons why she wished he was home. Jade and John manage to climb up the light colored sheets and jump right on Roxy’s abdomen effectively waking her up from her deep slumber.

“Wake up! Wake up!”

Rising up into a sitting position from her slumber she grabs the twin pups at their still loose necks to pick them up. Their eyes shining in glee of the fact that they get to see Jane or Nanna as they sometimes call her. Roxy hadn’t even opened her eyes yet to face the upcoming day. She puts them back on the floor and the both of them bolt out to wake up the other two who are still asleep. As she wipes the sleep from her rosy eyes she could hear Dave and Rose growling at John and Jade for not letting the two sleep peacefully. Roxy couldn’t hold the quiet laughter finally getting out the bed to make good on her promise. 

“Alright… I’m up…” Yawning as she rolls out of the bed in her night shirt and short shorts; she didn’t bother to check the time since Jade and John are early risers anyways. Four sets of feet, two fast; two slow, came pass her open door towards the living room to sit on the futon to wait for breakfast. Roxy pads along right after them thinking that they should really get chairs maybe her first check should go towards that. She shrugs at the thought and makes it to the one sided kitchen. 

The fridge didn’t have a lot in it. A few packets of pre-packaged meat, a half of a jug of milk, a couple of empty condiments and several tiny leftovers that should be thrown away, She hated giving them kibble, but that what they had on hand for emergencies. The meat they had now was only for dinner till Roxy went to the bounty office. She grabs four food dishes from a small cabinet over the stove and the kibble from the storage cabinet. When she opens it the pups’ reactions were priceless when they smelled it. Too bad Roxy didn’t see, but she could hear the puppies making gagging noises. She could obviously tell that they weren’t thrilled to be eating dried processed food. She pours into each bowl a fair amount and gives it to them. Roxy pops a hand full of them in her mouth for her breakfast. The fake beef taste really throws a dog hybrid off when they have been eating fresh meat for the longest. Everyone ate it with strained reluctance. When the pups finished they pile the bowls on the couch and the last one, Dave, gave Roxy the dishes to wash. All of them left to dig through their only closet to find what they wanted to wear.

The dishes were washed and everyone got dressed, after three different times Roxy made the pups’ change, to head over to Jane’s house. When the finally emerge from their room Dave wore a red t-shirt, some black shorts and red sneakers, Jade has on a long jean skirt and a plain green shirt with white shoes, Rose walks out in her short pink skirt with a white shirt lined with yellow flowers on the edge as well as her old black Maryjane shoes and John has a black shirt with green stripes in the middle with khaki shorts and black sneakers. She rallies them together towards the front door. Roxy wore her dark leggings, a dark blue tank top underneath a thin snow white hoodie. She was about as ready for the day, and night, as she will ever be. They huddle together before opening the door to their ground floor apartment. The air had thin whiffs of smoke from all the heavy machinery scattered all over the main city and so happens that they are just outside of the city.

“Ya’ll know where we’re going?”

“To Nanna’s!” That was the happy reply to their excitement of finally going back to Jane’s house.

“Alrighty let’s go.” Roxy couldn’t hold in the smile on her face as she ruffles their hair before walking in the general direction of HIC’s palace on the other side of the city. They follow behind with an extra bounce in their steps weaving around corners and behind alleyways to get to the main street towards Jane’s rather nice home. Many would guess that being a part of HIC’s entourage has a few perks to it. 

At Jane’s house though her red maryjanes clack in urgency towards her intended destination as her long black floppy ears that almost blend into her hair neatly, except for the left one which is white a small defect; From her father’s side being a Bearded Collie and all, seem to stand on end. Her eyes furrow in annoyance when she opened the door to the second bedroom in the hallway.

“Get up you! Don’t you have a job to get to this morning?”

The lump on the bed barely moves an inch in reaction to what she said.

“Jake Tyrone English! Get your narrow behind out of that bed this instance!!” Okay she made the middle name up, but Jane could care less about that. He really needs to get up. Gosh, he asks you to get him up early and what does he do? Just sleeps away the morning like there isn’t anything to do. 

She stomps over to the covered up lump and putting what felt to be an arm to start aggressively shaking him. The unmoving body began to frail in effort to get the offender and sheets off of him though it finally brings him to the waking world. Jane quickly removes herself from him and takes a couple of steps back as a fist comes shooting out from under the covers. The lightweight covers are pushed away violently to most likely say some pretty nasty things, but he stop himself from doing it. He did promise himself that he would be a gentleman about things nowadays. 

“Good golly Jane! Really? I could’ve punched you right in your gob!”

Jane rolls her blue eyes behind a thin red rimmed of glasses. She puts her hands on her hips and leans forward a little completely ignoring what he said. The Boxer hybrid sits up with his straight blue grey ears peeking from his sleep driven hair as they move forward a little and he pouts that helps to show her how annoyed he was.

“You need to get up unless you don’t want your window cleaning job this morning.”

“Geez! I’m up you don’t have to yank my tail anymore…” He scratches at his semi naked arms when Jane finally decides to leave him alone to his own devices. She had her own job to attend to anyways. Jake gets up yawning one last time before getting up from his bed. His long blue grey uncropped tail hangs low while he wipes the sleep from his eyes. His day was filled with odd little jobs, but Jake is grateful for any job actually. He didn’t want to be a burden on his proclaimed sister since the Grand Highdog beat him to a bloody pulp for hunting in restricted areas. In Jake’s defense he was adventuring more than really hunting. She took him in out of pity, but he wasn't one to complain. It took months to even sit up properly due to the overwhelming pain! He sighs through his nose making his way towards the bathroom to have a quick wash. Jake starts to get dressed until he couldn’t find his work boots nowhere in his room under the bed like always, except for this time.

“Hey Jane, do you know where my boots are?”   
Jake yells from the spare bedroom.

She stood at the door of her modest house, tying her pristine white apron around her waist, about to leave. She quickly looks around and sees his boots right by the canister of umbrellas. 

“They’re in here, Jake! Right by the umbrellas!”

She quickly leaves closing the door soundly behind, already late, when he appears to get his shoes to leave right behind her in the opposite direction. Her light blue dress flows in the slight wind. Before Jane could even get to the main street she caught a whiff of Roxy and the children. She groans when she sees them bounding towards her in near reckless abandon. The pups hug her snowy colored stocking clad legs in joy to spend some time with Jane since the candy fiasco. 

"Roxy you do know I have to work today." When Roxy finally caught up with the pups. 

"I know, but pleeease!" Roxy's hopeful smile shines bright in the morning sun which made Jane narrow her eyes. 

"Why didn't you tell me yesterday?"

"Well Dirk didn't tell me about another bounty until the last minute and I have that job tonight."  
She whispers the last part to Jane, so the kids wouldn't think to much into it. She really wished that Dirk would come home already. They really miss him and they'll catch on to why he's not home yet. Jane rubs her temple before deciding what to do.

"All right you. I'll watch them, but message me next time,” Jane rallies the puppies together," Come on dumplings let's go to the big kitchen."

They follow along as Roxy doubles back to go to the UBB office not to far from where she was. The building itself wasn't particularly big, but at least the inside was nice. There was short line this time around which she was glad for. She didn't want to stay long especially for shift of the next worker, Aranea. She swears on Dirk's pointy hair that there's something wrong with that annoying, know it all priss. She grunts in annoyance, but perks up at seeing who was at the counter. Rufioh! She hardly ever gets to see him and this won't take a bajillion years to do. She finally made it to the front desk with Rufioh smiling sweetly. 

"What can I do for you, Roxy?"

"It's nice to see you too!" Roxy leans over the counter to whisper, "How's that love triangle thing going?" Wink wink.

"Shhh! Geez doll, don't be putting my business out here!"

"I still can't believe that they haven't found out already. You'sa smooth criminal, if I do say so myself," She made the effort to wiggle her eyebrows, but that only causes Rufioh to laugh, “But it’s nice to be updated every now and again though."

"What? I didn't say a thing.”

"You don't have to." The all knowing smile. A trademark of hers right next to the cool kid grin of Dirk's, "Anyways, I've come to pick up the bounty money Dirk sent."

"You got it, doll face. You got his number on you?"

"His number is twelve, fifty-three, and fifteen."

He taps away at the keyboard with little effort and, to her relief, didn't start a conversation during.

“I’m sorry doll, but it hasn’t been posted yet.”

“But-?

Rufioh turns the computer around to show that indeed that there was anything under Dirk’s number. She wanted to bash her head onto the table, but couldn’t do it out of the potential of complete personal embarrassment. 

“Try again tomorrow, yeah?”

She really didn't want to feed the pups kibble for the next few days. She quickly walks out with Rufioh shouting his goodbyes. At least she had that job at the Drunken Abyss and with any luck the tips should be enough to get either takeout or some extra meat to eat later. Man, she wasn’t looking forward to tonight at all, but it’s for the family. Now what is she going to do for the rest of the day? Oh yeah! She completely forgot about doing the other thing today. Well she better get a move on before going to work tonight.

With Jane there was nothing easy about being the head baker in HIC's kitchen. Everything had to be perfect and on time. She's a patient ruler to a degree, but not a patient eater. The morning sun was burning away and she hadn’t gotten there yet. The puppies weren't going to make it any easier since she knew that the other bakers held a fondness for them. At least they will have the crescent breads done…

"John! Leave him alone!" John hung off of one of the taller guards who was close to peeling John off of his leg armor in the pup's attempt to climb up. He lets go and rejoins the makeshift pack. The guard flicks the helmet cover to glare, but at the same time force a smile on his face as per his therapist Meulin.

"What are they doing here, Jane Crocker?"

"Forgive John, Horuss. They're with me for the day."

"Her Condensation will not like this."

"I know. I'll deal with her when if it happens."   
Horuss closes his helmet once again with Jane quickly catches up to them in her low blue heels as they take the long way around instead of through the throne room. The lush carpeting padding their footsteps in the long hallways filled with mostly pictures of HIC herself and a gold object every now and then. Jane had never understood why she loves gold so much. She even has a ten foot tall gold statue of herself in her mechanical, due to allergies, garden. They finally make it to the royal kitchen. Jane rushes in as the puppies spread out in the kitchen. She had to get started on her specialty cakes with or without them in the way. The other bakers look up from their work to give warm greetings at their head baker, but they smile excitedly with one of them squeeing in glee as the pups run free throughout the kitchen. 

"Do not mess with the other bakers; do NOT eat anything in this kitchen and STAY out of the way!"

Jane moves fluidly through the lavish kitchen. She gathers ingredients for her melt in your mouth triple layered cinnamon cake that HIC must have with her at all meals. Jane quickly gets absorbed in her baking. Now these children listen well enough, but how often does anyone have near free reign in the palace of Her Condensation AND not be caught? Not many that's who! After the kids say their greetings to the other bakers and Jane was none the wiser. John becomes the appointed leader and under Dave's instructions they are led to a newly found ventilation shaft. John nicely pries the vent cover all the way off and all of them crawl inside one by one towards an adventure through the palace as Dave says.

“Let’s do this.”


End file.
